Archive for the ‘Campaign creation’ Category »

20 Unusual City Encounters: From Beg...

Posted on Jan 27 2010 | No Comments
20 Unusual City Encounters: From Beg, Borrow, & Steal Image via Wikipedia Once a month, I publish a newsletter of quick tips for busy GMs called Beg, Borrow & Steal. Some require advanced preparation to use, but most are designed to be last-minute tips you can add... Read More »

More Resources for Writing Adventure...

Posted on Nov 20 2009 | 2 Comments
Here’s the continuation of yesterday’s post on web resources for writing adventures: 9 Tips for Running Your First Convention Game. This is one of mine. On designing up and running conventions scenarios. 30 Fiction Writing Tips That Will Make You a Better DM. From Dungeon Mastering Blog.  A three-part series of quick tips to help improve your DMing... Read More »

Web Resources about Writing Adventur...

Posted on Nov 19 2009 | No Comments
Web Resources about Writing Adventures We all struggle with it (well, at least many of us struggle with it) — how do you write an adventure that your players will love? Here’s a collection of adventure creation resources available on the web: (Photo... Read More »

Your Teacher Was Right … Creat...

Posted on Oct 14 2009 | No Comments
Your Teacher Was Right … Creating Adventures with the 6 W’s The six “W’s”. You know — the questions your teacher talked about over and over. The ones that every book on how to write covers: who, what, when, where, why, how. These questions are good for more... Read More »

Building Better NPCs II: 8 Steps to ...

Posted on Sep 23 2009 | No Comments
Building Better NPCs II: 8 Steps to Memorable NPCs You’ve got your NPCs classified. You’ve separated the extras and walk-ons from the bit players and major characters. But how exactly do you go about creating those unique characters? Here’s a step-by-step... Read More »

Building Better NPCs I: Extras, Walk...

Posted on Sep 21 2009 | 1 Comment
Building Better NPCs I: Extras, Walk-Ons, Bit Players, and Major Characters Not every NPC needs to be memorable. Some can be a barely-noticed presence in the PCs lives, while others need to cast a shadow over everything the players do. While NPCs are vitally important, most GMs have limited time... Read More »

“Where are we again?”: C...

Posted on Jul 24 2009 | 3 Comments
Sometimes creating a believable city or town is one of the hardest parts of building an adventure or campaign. You don’t want all your towns to look the same and you definitely don’t want to get stuck in the generic “fantasy town”, consisting of a tavern/bar, inn or other lodgings, magic shoppe, etc. Below I’ve gathered a list of... Read More »

City Creation: Hospitality

Posted on Jun 29 2009 | No Comments
According to our demographics , Meadowbrook has two inns and ten restaurants/taverns/pubs and one of the innkeepers is a retired adventurer. Let’s start with our inns. The Inns The most obvious choice would be to place one inn in Littletun and one in Bigtun. But since inns generally aren’t used by locals, and the river docks are in Bigtun, it makes... Read More »

City Creation: Religion

Posted on Jun 26 2009 | No Comments
The next entry on our list of Notable People is “Clerics of the local shrines”. While these would, indeed, be notable people (the head priest/ess of the largest shrines would likely have considerable influence), religions differ greatly from one game system to the next and one campaign to the next. So much so, in fact, that I’m going to leave... Read More »

City Creation: Thieves Guild

Posted on Jun 25 2009 | No Comments
What would a fantasy game town be without a thieves guild? Whether the PCs work with it or oppose it, the local thieves guild frequently provides many opportunities for adventure. Meadowbrook’s thieves guild is extremely small: 10 members. Until the recent trade boom, Meadowbrook had no thieves guild — there simply weren’t enough thieves in... Read More »


123»